{"id":6684,"date":"2015-10-01T20:09:30","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T20:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=6684"},"modified":"2015-10-06T14:23:31","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T14:23:31","slug":"the-journey-a-deathly-odyssey-teaches-trumpeter-david-cooper-about-music-and-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=6684","title":{"rendered":"“The Journey” — A Deathly Odyssey Teaches Trumpeter David Cooper about Music and Life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Fb-Button\"\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>
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\"David<\/p>\n

David Cooper. Courtesy of Cooper’s blog allthingstrumpet.com<\/em><\/p>\n

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The David Cooper Quartet will perform Friday, October 9, 2015 @ 7:30 pm \u2013 9:30 pm.,\u00a0<\/strong>at The\u00a0Wisconsin Union’s Frederic March Play Circle,\u00a0800 Langdon Street,<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Madison. Admission is free.<\/strong><\/div>\n
Presented by the Greater Madison Jazz Consortium InDIGenous series.<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
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For virtuoso trumpeter David Cooper, the horn of plenty almost ran dry. Death Valley dry.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

You know the clich\u00e9 about art imitating life. What\u2019s more significant is how music can sometimes embody life and life transform music. That happened to Cooper in ways he never dreamed of. In fact, he\u2019s turned medical horror \u2014 a nightmare that threatened his life \u2014 into deathless music. The story speaks as much of courage as creativity, not to mention the endurance of pain, the face of mortality. Cooper is 51 years old.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re talking a trumpeter given a diagnosis of throat cancer in May 2014, shortly before the recent jazz recording The Journey<\/em> was planned. It\u2019s a bit like a boxer going down to the mat and the ref\u2019s counting you down. Imagine the tragic movie Million Dollar Baby.<\/em> The analogy is not much of a stretch.<\/p>\n

Not only a cancer diagnosis but a fractured jaw. And it sort of gets grisly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to have all four wisdom teeth taken out,\u201d Cooper recounts. \u201cThe cancer was under the skin so they were afraid it could potentially kill those teeth. To keep them clean would be just a mess, so they wanted to get rid of (the teeth) pre-emptively.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they knocked me out and actually fractured my jaw accidentally, removing the teeth. I started the radiation daily and chemo for six-weeks. They said in the last three weeks it won\u2019t be good and after that it\u2019s the worst, how treatment progresses.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the recording, I was in the third week of treatment. So my wife Kelly drove me back and forth to the studio, I couldn\u2019t drive. The chemo and radiation just knocks you out, so I was loopy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooper, who lives in Black Earth and is professor of music and chairman of the music department at the University Wisconsin-Platteville, took a planned road trip to an international trumpet convention in June. 1<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing had started, but my mind was reeling with the news of the cancer,\u201d he recounts, and admits little recollection of the conference. \u201cBut the road trip now provided the context. I had time to think and listen to many of my favorite recordings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost all the tunes are standards and are things I\u2019d always wanted to do,\u201d Cooper continued. \u201cI thought, I have a bucket list of things to do. So I could write new heads, so they\u2019re mine. Then I saw road signs and thought oh, that might be an interesting name for a tune.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the concept arose and came together the titles list congealed with an undercurrent of threat or danger: \u201cMerge Left,\u201d \u201cStop,\u201d \u201cDetour Ahead,\u201d \u201cSpeed Zone,\u201d \u201cRough Road Ahead,\u201d \u201cSlippery When Wet,\u201d etc.<\/p>\n

They serve as material for meaty musical interpretation, and as an extended metaphor for Cooper facing the threat of cancer and treatments, the violence to his person and psyche.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of fear and concern in that whole process,\u201d he admits. Considering that, what\u2019s amazing is how damn good The Journey<\/em> is.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

The cover photo of Dave Cooper for “The Journey.” Courtesy union.wisc.edu<\/em><\/p>\n

And Cooper feels his playing was compromised by the illness. He had anticipated this quandary. So in the previous months he busted his tail getting himself into \u201cthe best shape of his life\u201d for playing. If one compares The Journey<\/em> to his recordings of his transcribed Bach unaccompanied cello suites, one may perceive less technical assurance or \u2014 in to his previous jazz recordings \u2014 bravura. Throat cancer wreaks havoc on a horn player\u2019s embouchure, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you get out of shape you need to continually rebuild the mouth muscles by exercising. But the pressure on the lower jaw when I played, that was painful. I didn\u2019t know why at the time. It wasn\u2019t diagnosed as a fracture until months later. I thought I had an infection in December, which really scared me. My face was so swollen they had to wait until it died down to search for the cancerous spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Picture, say, a lopsided watermelon wilting in the heat and sliced open just enough to stick a trumpet in, like a knife.\u00a0 And Dave\u2019s a handsome fella.<\/p>\n

His wife, the talented jazz singer Kelly DeHaven, deserved none of this. \u201cKelly went through every bit of this with me. Now she\u2019s kind of exhausted and beat up. She needs the time to be nurtured. She was a rock through all of this. They did this carpet bombing: \u2018Here are your drugs, hope they knock down the swelling.\u2019 That\u2019s when we all hit rock bottom. It did turn out to be an infection caused by tooth extraction which never healed well. \u201c<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the opportunity had arisen, almost like a long-unrequited musical love affair too sweet for disease to deny, an Affair to Remember<\/em>. You may hear a sense of mature wonder, a life faced and lived, and perhaps inevitable angst, which can take you a long way as a listener.<\/p>\n

The strong material, mostly based on changes of classic tunes, sounds time-tested. The music resonates in my memory as a listener.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt helped to provide a good structure and familiarity so the rest of the guys could come into the pieces much faster and be comfortable,\u201d Cooper says unassumingly. He considers himself lucky in another way<\/p>\n

\u201cThis band was basically my dream team, of the people I\u2019ve played with in the last ten years.\u201d That would be Madison pianist Johannes Wallman, Appleton bassist Mark Urness and Chicago drummer Ernie Adams.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s where Cooper\u2019s journey really does detour, through a virtual Death Valley. And the guy riding stagecoach was that nasty outlaw named Side Effects. And there\u2019s no end in sight for that road, not yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still dealing with the radiation in my throat,\u201d Cooper explains. \u201cMy whole throat and jaw area all contain salivary glands and are affected. Well, (the doctors) fried those and now I have constant dry mouth. The embouchure is really compromised without saliva. So I have to think in shorter phrases and always have a bottle of water by my side. That began during the session. It felt like the face wasn\u2019t mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention, or the power of creation.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps I didn\u2019t have all my tools available to me, I had to be judicious about what I say, and how I say it, and be more succinct,\u201d he says. \u201cNow that I feel my playing is back to normal I think I\u2019ve learned from that. I\u2019m trying to say more with less.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooper\u2019s resourceful courage is almost palpable on The Journey<\/em>. And the band swings, swerves and hums through it like a finely-tuned Maserati, masterfully hugging the curves of the tunes. Plus, you have Cooper taking \u201cMerge Left\u201d based on \u201cGreen Dolphin Street.\u201d The opening salvo of C to Cm7 to D7 to D flat to C is among the standard repertoire\u2019s most satisfying sequences of naturally transporting changes. Other tunes are based on Coltrane\u2019s \u201cGiant Steps,\u201d Terence Blanchard\u2019s \u201cTransform,\u201d Wes Montgomery\u2019s \u201cRoad Song,\u201d among others. \u201cIn some ways it\u2019s like my maiden voyage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The recording ends with a warm exhalation, Cooper\u2019s solo rendition of Hoagie Carmichael\u2019s \u201cStardust,\u201d dedicated to his father. Tom Cooper, a trumpeter, taught young Dave basic fingering and other essential lessons of musicianship.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of my dad, I wasn\u2019t in just a sea of people,\u201d Cooper recollects. \u201cI was at the top of the class. So because of my dad I began practicing to stay ahead. That kick-started me.\u201d
\nHere\u2019s to David Cooper taking his sweet time with his bucket list, for a long, journey down the road before stardust befalls him for the last time.<\/p>\n

___________<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Cooper has music degrees from three schools: a B.M. from Lawrence University, a M.M from Akron University and a D.M.A. from UW-Madison.<\/p>\n

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The Journey<\/em> is available http:\/\/allthingstrumpet.com\/shop\/ and http:\/\/www.cdbaby.com\/cd\/davidcooper22 and amazon.com<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was commissioned by the Madison Jazz Consortium and originally published in Jazz in Madison<\/em> at<\/strong>\u00a0http:\/\/www.jazzinmadison.org\/the-journey-a-deathly-odyssey-teaches-david-cooper-about-music-and-life\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Cooper. Courtesy of Cooper’s blog allthingstrumpet.com The David Cooper Quartet will perform Friday, October 9, 2015 @ 7:30 pm \u2013 9:30 pm.,\u00a0at The\u00a0Wisconsin Union’s Frederic March Play Circle,\u00a0800 Langdon Street, Madison. Admission is free. Presented by the Greater Madison … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-www-kevernacular-com"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hJWE-1JO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6684"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6711,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6684\/revisions\/6711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}